Time Quick Cryptic No 2935 by Mara

Author   TemplarPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Straight down the middle from Mara, with lots of neat setting and a surplus of double definitions. 07:32 for me, thanks to Mara and I hope that you all enjoyed it too.

Definitions underlined in bold.

Across
1 Astonishing looker going off (3-7)
EYE-POPPING – EYE [looker] + POPPING [going off, like a firework or a party popper]. It took me some while to escape the mind-trap of “eye-rotting”, which made no sense at all but had lodged itself in my frontal lobes.
7 Bird dog loses lead (5)
EAGLE – {b}EAGLE [dog loses lead]. The poor old beagle gets beheaded quite a bit in these parts.
8 Heart shown by men, but not head, in second performance (6)
ENCORE – EN [men “but not head” ie without first letter] + CORE [heart].
10 Sure easy forgetting a cryptic! (3)
YES – anagram [“cryptic”, not sure I’ve seen that as an anagram indicator before so I looked twice at this] of E{a}SY [easy forgetting a]. Pretty tricky for a three letter clue!
12 Tailor cut and ironed present (9)
INTRODUCE – anagram [tailor] of “cut” and “ironed”. Here it’s the verb to present/introduce.
13 Respect paid by a gentleman originally welcomed into house (6)
HOMAGE – A [a] + G [gentleman originally] go inside [welcomed into] HOME [house – the verb, as in house/home a refugee].
14 Go over  card game (6)
BRIDGE – double definition #1.
17 Novel race in paper (9)
NEWSPRINT – NEW [novel] + SPRINT [race]. Collins says “an inexpensive wood-pulp paper used for newspapers”.
19 Mark dead on target, initially (3)
DOT – first letters of [initially] “dead on target”.
20 Small enough specimen (6)
SAMPLE – S [small] + AMPLE [enough]. Elegant.
21 A question: one on Irish Asian (5)
IRAQI -A [a] + Q [question] + I [one], all going on IR [Irish]. I tend to think of the Middle East as not being part of Asia, but that is because I am rubbish at Geography.
23 Wild cactus near crab, say (10)
CRUSTACEAN -anagram [wild] of “cactus near”. I was recently in Baja California and the cacti grow all the way down to the sea, so this is not an impossible image!
Down
1 All in plate, very thin gruel (10)
EVERYTHING – hidden [in] “plate, very thin gruel”. Very good!
2 The scrambling thing, ultimately? (3)
EGG – last letters [ultimately] of “the scrambling thing“. Since you could, whimsically, say that an egg is “the scrambling thing, ultimately” I’m going to risk being beaten up by the Clue Police and suggest that this might well be the lesser spotted &Lit.
3 Initial  opportunity (7)
OPENING – double definition #2.
4 Quite  appealing (6)
PRETTY – double definition #3.
5 Chip on a chop, partly (5)
NACHO – fantastic surface, I loved it and COD from me. Hidden [partly] in “on a chop”.
6 Punished as a teenager, Don urged to reform (8)
GROUNDED – anagram [to reform] of “Don urged”.
9 Tedious  walker (10)
PEDESTRIAN – double definition #4. Piece of cake, this blogging lark.
11 4 down mates who modelled (8)
SOMEWHAT – anagram [modelled] of “mates how”. Do I think that it’s a bit rubbish to be told that the definition is the answer to another clue? Reader, I do.
15 Stainer ruined drink (7)
RETSINA – anagram [ruined] of “stainer”. Any mention of RETSINA revives teenage trauma of over-indulgence on a school trip to Athens. Aaarrghh.
16 Diggers children heard? (6)
MINERS – aural wordplay [heard] between MINERS/minors.
18 Musician narrowly beat queen (5)
PIPER – PIP [narrowly beat] + ER [queen].
22 Cut tax evasion to some extent (3)
AXE – hidden [to some extent] within “tax evasion”.

 

85 comments on “Time Quick Cryptic No 2935 by Mara”

  1. From OPENING to INTRODUCE in a pretty standard time of 8:04. I couldn’t make any sense of the 1s for quite some time, ditto SOMEWHAT because of the link to a clue I hadn’t yet solved. I was glad of the E checker for CRUSTACEAN otherwise I would have bungled the spelling. Thanks Templar

  2. 7 minutes. Didn’t particularly like 11d either although as Jack says it’s a common device used by Mara in at least one of his other guises. I liked the small but perfectly formed EGG and the ‘easy’ only in retrospect YES.

    Thanks to Templar and Mara

  3. Just a few seconds outside target at 10.07, but would have been comfortably inside if it wasn’t for my last two in MINERS and eventually PRETTY. I join others in my dislike of cross referencing, although Spoonerisms are my prime hate. A very nice crossword from Mara, and thanks also to our very own Rumpole for the blog.

  4. 5:55

    PRETTY gentle, SOMEWHAT PEDESTRIAN perhaps? Not for me! I enjoyed this romp through the mind of Mara, stopping to enjoy the view only for LOI MINERS which, as for a few others, seems to have been a minor sticking point. For the record, I don’t mind clues that reference other clues/answers, it’s just an additional part of the puzzle to solve.

    Brandy is my RETSINA, particularly Metaxa (Greek brandy) circa 1991 – never again….

    Thanks Templar and Mara

    1. I gargle with Remy Martin whenever I get a sore throat, cures it instantly, I guess you could use vodka instead 🙂 Pretty sure I avoided covid a few times using that technique 😉

      Do latin scholars pronounce it cov-id like they pronounce iss-ue?

  5. 8minutes for me; about as fast as I can go.
    LOI MINERS which required several looks.
    I’m not normally a fan of cross-referenced clues but the PRETTY and SOMEWHAT pair win my COD prize.
    David

  6. 15:13 for me, which included a trip to an anagram solver when I lost patience with 11d after staring at it for about five seconds. My LOI was also MINERS, and while the checking letters were worthless I’m still not sure why so many of us struggled with it. In my case I just didn’t think of the homonym when thinking of words for “children”, and was also somewhat distracted by the suspicion that it might be an insect or burrowing mammal that I’d never heard of.

    Thank you for the blog!

  7. DNF due to Introduce despite having all the checkers. Got a little bored with the surplus of DDs, except Tedious walker. Thanks all

  8. From EGG to PEDESTRIAN, with a long pause at POI, MINERS, in 7:14. EVERYTHING caused a furrowed brow for a while too. Thanks Mara and Templar.

  9. A straightforward 16 minute solve for me. I didn’t get too many of the acrosses on first pass but made up for that with considerable success in the downs. Count me as neutral with regard to cross-referenced clues although I think this was a poor example. Am I the only one to think that pedestrian and tedious are far from synonymous? Luckily I have avoided any bad experiences with retsina.

    FOI – 7ac EAGLE
    LOI – 4dn PRETTY
    CODs – 1dn EVERYTHING for its cleverness and 17ac NEWSPRINT for the PDM.

    Thanks to Mara and Templar

  10. 1d Everything, very well hidden! COD.
    15d Retsina. The anagrammer in my Cheating Machine tells me there are 7 words using these 7 letters, a record I am told. I learned this by reading the Times column on Scrabble. And I love retsina! It doesn’t taste at all like lavatory cleaner jackkt, (AFAIK, not having tried the latter.) However I have to admit that both retsina and ouzo taste better in Greece than they do in UK.
    Thanks Templar & Mara.

  11. Nice easy one today. Like others I didn’t like 11D, which was almost last to go in. Took some time to get to POPPING for 1A: I was thinking of ‘going off’ in terms of going rotten. Also slow on 13A.

  12. Many thanks to Mara for a genuine QC – SOMEWHAT of a rarity these days. Actually, I solved SOMEWHAT before 4d and with only S___W___ in the grid. Strange!

    Despite starting slowly, I picked up the pace in the lower half of the grid and never really got too bogged down at any stage after that. My last two in were HOMAGE and PIPER, and I was very pleased to cross the line in around 17 minutes – my first SCC escape for ages, I think.

    Many thanks to Templar for the blog.

  13. 50 mins and a pink typo square.
    Only got LOI MINERS after I used a thesaurus.

    Took an age to get started. FOI:DOT.
    Clues were fair (though I dislike clues referencing other clues). Enjoyable but I found it very tough. COD MINERS

    Thanks Mara and Templar.

  14. 9:35 I think EYE-POPPING took the most thought. I quite like a good cross-reference clue or spoonerism to add a splash of variety!

  15. DNF. Pulled stumps at the 30min post with 9d extant. There’s only so much fun to be had from alpha-trawling your way across the grid, and Pedestrian didn’t even get close. Needless to say, a difficult solve up to then, with a confident Eye-Blowing (damn those supporting Nachos) setting the tone from the start. My thanks to Templar, and to Mara for confirming that DD clues are on the list of light entertainment in hell. Invariant

  16. 20.34 Very quiet in the SCC today. RATHER instead of PRETTY gummed up the NE for ages, despite not making much sense. I spent a while wondering how teenagers and UNDERDOG were related. They weren’t. MINERS and PEDESTRIAN were slow. Finished with OPENING. Thanks Templar and Mara.

  18. Last two in were OPENER/EYE-POPPING which held me up for ages. Otherwise all went in fairly smoothly despite all the DDs (my least favourite clue). Missed a few smiles along the way but still a nice QC. I don’t mind cross-reference clues as they make my brain work a bit harder for some reason. Didn’t ever spot that EVERYTHING was a hidden 🙄 Thanks Templar and Mara.

  19. Yes, I made heavy weather of this one so hope to hop on to the back of the SCC. Not my day but I did finish eventually after plodding randomly around the grid. LOsI INTRODUCE (wrong anagram), PRETTY ( how dim), POPPING, ENCORE. Also slow on PEDESTRIAN and NEWSPRINT which gave me PIPER.
    FOI CRUSTACEAN, having had to start at the bottom.
    Liked HOMAGE, EGG, EVERYTHING (tho failed to see hidden).
    Thanks vm, Templar.

  20. DNF

    Hugely frustrating. All done without too much difficulty, although I struggled with ENCORE and MINERS. But the DPS was for 21ac where I put IRANI.

  21. Just out of the SCC by a matter of seconds.
    Held up by MINERS and PEDESTRIAN.
    Backpacking and poor in the early ’80’s retsina took on a joy of its own.
    Tried it years later when out of Greece – it was just tree sap. Who would drink that?
    Same time, down to last ‘pennies’. Worked out that more calories, therefore more meals in a bottle of cheap port and a MARS bar than in salad or sandwiches.
    Have not touched port much since…
    Enjoyed this – thank you T and M

  22. An enjoyable 8:32, which was quite a change after the tussle I had with Izetti late last night, which took (gave?) a big chunk of time though I don’t know how much.

    I loved YES and EVERYTHING. CRUSTACEAN was excellent and I too was recently in Baja enjoying the crabs and cacti. Perhaps I crossed paths with Templar, who knows. And sorry everyone, I like cross-referring clues.

    Thanks Mara and Templar.

    PS: as long as we’re sharing horrible alcohol experiences I will add the de rigueur vodka on the Dnieper (as it was then) in Ukraine. Fortunately I had a private cabin in which to be sick.

  23. After a slow start the answers fell into place, for us, an enjoyable puzzle. We had the same problem with 1a as some others.

  24. I lack my muse today and it showed, with an at best PEDESTRIAN 15:54. Held up significantly by not being able to see POI PRETTY for a long time, even with SOMEWHAT firmly in place, so the cross reference didn’t really help me in reverse. Finally, its P eliminated the thoughts of EYE-OPENING and even less sensible -ROTTING to give me LOI 1a. COD EVERYTHING. Thanks all.

  26. Plain sailing although I took longer on PEDESTRIAN and MINER than the rest of the grid. Bit disappointed with that in hindsight but they just weren’t coming.

    Liked: HOMAGE

  27. A disappointing 14 mins when compared to the competition.

    Thanks for the blog.

    PS 7 short on 15 x 15. I’m finding this to be an almighty struggle at the moment. Hard to derive satisfaction from being so poor.

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